Console select menu in python

Question

I have a idea to create a console select menu in python like this:

Choose an option:
> 1. Do something 1 <
  2. Do something 2
  3. Do something 3
  4. Do something 4

If I press up arrow key, nothing happens. If I press the down one, the less than and greater than symbol would move up and down like this:

Choose an option:
  1. Do something 1 
> 2. Do something 2 <
  3. Do something 3
  4. Do something 4

But I dont know which Python 3 module would help me catch the key press instead of input(), and idk how I can align it correctly.

My solution for alignment is to print spaces (maybe?) and when the key press event is catches, the console will be cleared and it prints the select menu again instead of changing/modifying the strings.

Also, the options would be get from a list, which means this menu is expandable

[detect key press in python?](https://stackoverflow.com/q/24072790) — Bernhard Barker, Jun 23 '19 at 12:28

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 23 '19 at 19:09

You have to detect the keyboard key. As this detect key press in python? answer mentioned, Python has a keyboard module for it.

You can install it with these command

pip install keyboard

Here's how it works

Define a menu number range, in this case is 1 until 4
Set a default selected menu and represent it with a number that we have defined, so it will appear when the user open the menu, in this case is 1
If a user press Up key, you have decrement the selected menu number, except if it has been on the first element of the range. And vice versa for the Down key, you have increment the selected menu number, except if it has been on the last element of the range.

import keyboard

selected = 1

def show_menu():
    global selected
    print("\n" * 30)
    print("Choose an option:")
    for i in range(1, 5):
        print("{1} {0}. Do something {0} {2}".format(i, ">" if selected == i else " ", "<" if selected == i else " "))

def up():
    global selected
    if selected == 1:
        return
    selected -= 1
    show_menu()

def down():
    global selected
    if selected == 4:
        return
    selected += 1
    show_menu()

show_menu()
keyboard.add_hotkey('up', up)
keyboard.add_hotkey('down', down)
keyboard.wait()

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 06 '20 at 14:35

5

the above process makes code messier and requires root privileges to run on Linux. the best way is to use enquiries

pip3 install enquiries

and use the following code

import enquiries

options = ['Do Something 1', 'Do Something 2', 'Do Something 3']
choice = enquiries.choose('Choose one of these options: ', options)

print(choice)

answered Aug 06 '20 at 14:35

The insane engineers

91
1
2

14

For future readers: as of 2020, it does not support Windows – IvanD Sep 10 '20 at 18:04
File "{user}\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\curses\__init__.py", line 13, in from _curses import * ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_curses' – Negar Zamiri Oct 22 '20 at 00:07

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 07 '21 at 03:23

I wrote a Python module pick for this, it has an easy to use api and supports Windows

https://github.com/wong2/pick

from pick import pick

title = 'Please choose your favorite programming language: '
options = ['Java', 'JavaScript', 'Python', 'PHP', 'C++', 'Erlang', 'Haskell']

option, index = pick(options, title, indicator='=>', default_index=2)

Console select menu in python

3 Answers3

Linked